We chose darkness

Was the sea not turquoise, said Aphrodite
as if on Mandraki beach, close to scented pines
was it, perhaps, the wrong shade of blue?

Please understand that it was liars, I replied

who restricted our horizons

hedge fund managers and philistines.

Her eyes narrowed. An oyster catcher flew by.

What about sunlight, sparkling on water
our pantheon, the Dionysian mysteries?

Certainly, we liked a drink, I said

but it was rarely ambrosia or nectar.

Mainly, we liked to drink lager.

Was it our philosophers, our chefs, our engineers

the constellations, that glowed at night?

No, we liked them, I answered, for many years.

It was barbarians who annulled our union.

Those who had turned their back on Beethoven.

Extremists. The rest followed them blindly.

We chose darknesss. We turned off our own light.

I don’t get it, she insisted. What about Orpheus?

Didn’t that guy have some good tunes?

To be honest, I had no answer to that

How could I explain? We preferred Wetherspoons.
I looked across at the penny arcade

the sullen, stuccoed pub, the sugar stalls

the strip of churned up mud, the brown sea
then at my blurred tattoo. England’s glory.

Christmas shopping

Kindness is spreading like a virus.
It passes quickly through the winter town.
In this season, me has become us.
For who is not tempted by a bargain?
There is chaos in the sales hall
in the perfume shop, a near riot.
Drawn like insects to the gaudy mall
as if the world’s riches were running out
in a strange dance, we jostle and thrum.
Clutching our packages, our love
we collide busily, slide and hum.
Are we asleep or more keenly alive?
It is a play in which we know our part.
A ritual of the altruistic heart.